Are undergraduate examinees' perceptions of item difficulty related to item characteristics?

Full Abstract

The present study assessed whether selected item characteristics--difficulty for the group, corrected item-total correlation, cognitive level, and difficulty for the examinee--relate to judgment of item difficulty. Undergraduate students in two classes (ns = 76, 43) identified what they believed were the five easiest and five most difficult items on a multiple-choice test. Statistically significant correlations were observed for difficulty for the group and the frequency that items were chosen as easy as well as with frequency of items chosen as difficult. Students performed significantly better on items they chose as easy than those chosen as difficult. Items chosen as easy more often called for simple, factual recall than did items chosen as difficult.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Morse, David T (DT); Morse, Linda W (LW);

Affiliation: Mississippi State University, P.O. Box 9727, MS 39762, USA. dmorse(-atsign-)ra.msstate.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Perceptual and motor skills (Percept Mot Skills), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Dec; vol 95 (issue 3 Pt 2) : pp 1281-6

Dates: Created 2003/02/11; Completed 2003/05/14; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12578272, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Judgment
Male
Perception
Students - psychology

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.